What I should be doing is cleaning up , getting ready for next week --- and clearing my desk. But that can wait ... I think for a time when I won't just toss all the stuff sitting on my desk into the trash can --- which is really what I want to do. I am due to meet some other teachers for teacher talk and 'adult beverages ' but... All day today I have been thinking about friendship and I want to talk about that here --- maybe as a meditation on what it means to be a friend and maybe as a way to understand what friendship is around me . This is a time of year in education when everyone is dragging because they have really given everything they can --- but guess what there are 10 -ish more days to go and this excuse or that child needs you to be there for them --- and that is where we have to reach deep as it were to do and say what is going to build up and not tear down in these final days of the school year .
This has everything to do with friendship. Yes , friendships and rapport with the children , with the teachers , with the parents--- all of it --- and --- and this is an especially important and the people that are in our lives. I remember at the first of the year I wrote that everyone who knows and loves a teacher needs to be understanding that the beginning of the year is stressful and frenetic and crazy --- and yes -- the ending of the year is stressful and frenetic and crazy --- but it always is --- everyday is this way and what's amazing is not that its a stand up all day long , be calm when you want to scream , love when you have nothing left --- give more kind of job --- it is that we are given time to regenerate , renew --- bring ourselves back around --- this is a huge gift --- and allows us to be a friend to the ones we love in a way that is deep and real --- because we have been given this time.
To be a friend is a responsibility --- a treasure, a gift . To have a friendship that is deep and loving and beautiful is a treasure that is priceless. I feel that I have deep and beautiful friendships --- I am so thankful for this huge support in my life --- without which I would not be able to reach inside for any of the school days that are ahead --- or I have already lived.
Thank you. I love you .
Amen.
Posted by: kris | May 16, 2009 at 09:07 AM